by Brett Dahlberg (SEPTEMBER 10, 2018) Doctors classify skin into one of six categories, depending on how it responds to sunlight. The lightest skin always burns and never tans, and the darkest skin doesn’t burn or tan. WXXI’s Brett Dahlberg has the story of a Rochester startup’s effort to change inequalities in how diseases are diagnosed on different ends of that spectrum.
A Rochester startup is looking to solve a medical problem with a global scope. VisualDx is building a database of what diseases look like on all skin colors, in an effort to correct persistent racial inequalities in diagnosis.
Scientists have known for decades about racial inequalities in access to medical care. A landmark 1985 report from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, for example, found that minority Americans lived further from doctors and had less ability to pay for medical care compared to white people.
Then a 2002 report from the National Institute of Medicine indicated that even when they accessed medical care at equal rates, with similar insurance plans and income levels, black patients received treatment inferior to white patients.
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